Tobacco growing

[Bobby Bass]

Tobacco and Tomatoes might not be real compatible, if that is a factor. The T in VFNT is for Tobacco Mosaic Virus.

don't know what tomatoes have to do with tobacco, only mentioned the tomatoes as a bench mark for growing size. As for the Tobacco I should have known that a plant that produced thousands of seeds per plant was not going to be easy to germinate. I have since found the way to do is it to spread seed in a large pan and then hand pick the best seedling to transplant. Still I have enough plants to continue my project.

2 month old Small Black Mammoth seedling, used for making cigar wrappers

[delcecchi]

I just mentioned tomatoes as a note that it might be a good idea not to plant them too close to tobacco.

That plant looks like it is doing great.

As far as germination, some seeds need light others not, and bottom heat for the tray sometimes helps. That is about all I know about getting stuff to germinate.

[Bobby Bass]

Just got done transplanting some of the tobacco plants to larger cups, see if the new digs spur a growth spurt. Looks like I am going to try the container growing on the deck where I can keep an eye on them and control watering better then in the garden. Thanks Del for the heads up on the tomatoes, hard to do around here as I have cherry tomatoes plants everywhere. In the garden, pots and the upside down pots. Guess you can tell I like cherry tomatoes!

[delcecchi]

Your tobacco plants might not really be a problem after I did further research. But wash your hands and don't spit chew in the garden....

http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/vegetables/tomato-tmv-disease/

[Bobby Bass]

Picture of ten week old tobacco plant after being transplanted to a larger 1 quart pot, has started to spread out.

[Bobby Bass]

Tobacco plants are now 11 weeks old and this one is in a qt pot and is 6 inches high with the leaves 8 x 4 inches. The couple of plants that have made it this far are doing well and if the weather improves they will be good size when they go into the ground or an outdoor pot.

[Bobby Bass]

Update: I have three small black mammoth which are doing very well and a couple of Havana long leaf that are just sitting there, I am waiting for them to take off as it would be nice to get some leaf from them. The mammoth is a wrapper leaf used as the final layer when building a cigar. The Havana can be used as a filler, the center of the cigar and also as a binder which you wrap around the filler to give you the shape of a cigar and then add the final wrapper to finish it off. The Virginia leaf I planted never happen for me. Since this is my first year doing this I am learning I have to plant a lot more seed to get as many plants as I need. The current idea is I am going to transplant to five gallon buckets and keep the tobacco on the big deck where I can control how much light they get and water. With luck I will be able to harvest the mammoth leave and be able to figure out how to dry and cure them for later use. I can buy dry leaf over the Internet and also from my local tobacco shop so I might be making my own cigars still come this fall.

They are a good looking plant and many people plant tobacco just for the look of them and as ornamental decorations. I think they will look pretty good on the deck along side the swing as they do grow over four feet tall with the big leaves.

[Bobby Bass]

Plant is now 13 weeks old and is 10 inches high and 16 inches wide, ready to transplant to a 10 gallon planter and placed on the deck for the summer. Will be putting the three Mammoth plants on the deck while the four Virginia long leaf are going to be planted in the garden. That is of course when the weather warms up enough here to put something in the ground..

The container for the tobacco plant is a qt size yogurt cup, actually it is two of them. A trick to use when planting is to plant your one plant in a cup and put several holes in it for drainage. I then put that cup into another cup that I have added about a ½ inch of pea rock to. This allows excess water to drain into the bottom cup and keeps the upper cup out of the water. Cheap way to keep the window sills clean.

[Bobby Bass]

17 weeks old and the Mammoth tobacco plants are now in 40 quart planters on the deck here. Looking forward to see how much they grow in the next month. The Virginia Gold long leaf plants (4) of them were put into the garden yesterday and I am looking to see if they will take off out there.

[JP Z]

Those are looking Good Bobby, I'm interested to see how this all goes.

[Bobby Bass]

Time for an update. Plants on deck are doing well and the middle one we have started to call Audrey after the Little Shop of Horrors. This one has really taken off... Some leaves are now over 21 inches long!

[ozzie]

interesting to follow the process!!

[Bobby Bass]

Tobacco plants have had a good July growing a couple of feet and are now flowering! Should not be to much longer before the harvesting can start.

[Bobby Bass]

July 30th update.

A picture of a full bloom tobacco flower. When the flower dies off the tobacco is considered mature and will be ready for leaf picking. Here you can see the plants that are now about 4.5 feet tall and have about 20-22 big leafs each. Only one plant has flowers as I will be saving seeds from that plant for next year. The other plants had there flowers nipped off before they could bloom. In a few weeks I will be plucking leaves and beginning the drying process.

[ozzie]

thanks for continuing to show us this process...pretty neat

[Dotch]

I agree. This is much more fun than watching the cotton grow after a customer fed cottonseed to his dairy herd!

[Bobby Bass]

Here Dotch I have added some entertainment while we wait for the tobacco..

[Bobby Bass]

I have stopped watering the tobacco plants so they are only getting rainfall now. As you can see the bottom leaves are starting to change from the dark green to a pale yellow when they get to a tan I will pluck the leaves and start the drying process. The leaves will start at the bottom and change color as they go up the stem, so there is a time frame between the first harvested leaves and the last ones.

[Bobby Bass]

Tobacco update: I have started to pluck lower leaves from the plants that are starting to die off. I would prefer to leave the leaf on the plants as long as I can so they can start the drying process on the plant but with all of this rain the plants just keep on thriving. As you can see in the picture there are several leafs in various stages of drying. I have found the best place of my several options has been inside the greenhouse where it is warm and much dryer then hanging leaf out in the shed or under the roof of the boat house. Some leaf that I have may have some mold that is from the leaf laying down on the soil and not getting picked soon enough it will be discarded. Yet other leaf is drying to a light tan color and almost feels like real thin leather, The experiment continues!

[Bobby Bass]

Middle of September and I have decided to harvest all the leaf off two of my three plants. The leaf is 16-24 inches long and here you can see I have them ready to hang. The more I read about this hobby the more I see there are many ways to harvest and cure. I have found out for me the best way is to hang individual leaf so I am now wrapping a rubber band around the base of the leaf and then put a bent paper clip through the rubber band. This lets me hang each leaf so it does not touch another leaf. I am hanging the leaf inside my greenhouse where I can control the heat and air movement. Also before I hang the leaf I take a paint brush and clean the leaf of dirt and any bugs as the leaf is very tacky.

Here is a picture of some dry leaf and I am curing this by putting the dry leaf in a large shoe box and keeping it high on a shelf in the greenhouse. This allows the leaf to cure with the warmer air. I will let the leaf stay out in the greenhouse for the rest of fall and check on it turning it a couple of times a week. I am hoping this will cure the tobacco and we will see how it ages.

This pictures shows you how big the root ball for one of these tobacco plants can get. The last plant still has flowers on it and I am letting that one continue to grow because I am looking to harvest seed from the plant. This is a learning process and next year there will be some changes made. For one I think I could have gone ahead and started harvesting leaf in mid July and started the drying process that much sooner. This tobacco is a wrapper leaf for cigars and I have rolled a few cigarettes from it and it is surprisingly mild. I will hold on to this and maybe order some filler leaf online this winter and see about rolling a few cigars. If I do I will share it with you.

[Bobby Bass]

Update- Leaf continues to dry out in the greenhouse

Harvest time for seeds, the flower top has dried out so the pods are ready to be gathered.

Here are about thirty some pods that I will break open and dump into a shifter

Here is a couple of thousands seeds from those few pods, each plants has well over a hundred pods so once you grow a plant you will never have to worry about getting any seeds.

After the leaf dry's in the greenhouse I am putting them into a shoe box and storing it in my den on a shelf close to the ceiling, warmest part of the room and now the long process of keeping the leaf warm and dry and letting it cure, the stuff in there already is getting an aroma to it. May be awhile before this is updated again but I hope I helped anyone who wants to dry and grow their own. I am of course looking at making cigars if you were just doing this for cigarettes I would think you could go ahead and shred the leaves after they have dried and cured for awhile and go ahead and roll.. Bobby

[DooWap]

I just mentioned tomatoes as a note that it might be a good idea not to plant them too close to tobacco.

I was reading through this thread and when I got to this part I couldn't help thinking about an old Simpsons episode

[ozzie]

good ol Tomacco...everyone wanted to eat the tomacco's!! even the animals...haha

[Bobby Bass]

Well here is the November update, I started rolling some of my own cigars and it does take some practice. I bought some leaf from my local shop and made myself a two cigar mold after seeing how much they want for them online. Here is a picture of two cigars with just their binder no final wrapper.

I tried a couple using the wrapper I grew this summer but it is harsh and no where close to aged enough to be used. The three plants that I grew produced about ten ounces of leaf after drying. I have the leaf in a big zip lock bag and am controlling the temperature and humidity trying to promote a good controlled cure, maybe late next summer it might be ready to play a little with. The ideal is 70/70 temp/humidity, I am close.

I did get a nice color to my leaf. This is wrapper and I will be able to hold on to this and keep aging it for years. I am on the fence so to speak as to growing more next summer, There are about 6 different kind of leaf I want to try and I have learned a ton this year and should have a better year growing if I do. Just a lot of time involved doing this. Of course the easy way would be just growing leaf for cigarettes but I am taking the hard route and trying to do cigars.

[swamptiger]

Cool thread. Thanks for sharing all this..